


you had jesus on your breath

by ever_neutral



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-01
Updated: 2011-12-01
Packaged: 2017-10-26 19:06:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/286835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ever_neutral/pseuds/ever_neutral
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You destroy everyone because you choose to," she said coolly. "It does not make you special."</p><p>[Post-<i>Homecoming</i>]</p>
            </blockquote>





	you had jesus on your breath

  


  
  


~

  
As ever, he is the one to pull the dagger from her heart.

How wonderfully ironic.

She wishes somehow she were still dead. Is not at all surprised that he is not. Her brother is the one unshakable thing in a mercilessly fickle universe; if ever he were to leave, she thinks she might float away, as light as ash on a careless wind.

~

  
The first time Niklaus made her cry, the moon was high in the sky.

She remembers this, because she followed him to a clearing in the nearest woods; he stood, a lone figure cursing the stars.

He was upset. Mikael had been unkind. Niklaus had committed some misdeed or other, said the wrong thing, gone somewhere he shouldn't have--it really didn't matter. No one would remember this incident--of many--in the years to come.

What she does remember is the bruise forming under her brother's eye, an ugly stain on young flesh. It made him look even sallower than usual, vulnerable and exposed. Niklaus hated to be seen that way. It was why he came out to deserted places like this clearing, where no one would see him be alone.

But she always saw, whether he wanted her to or not. That was the problem.

"Bekah?" He faced her, startled and betrayed, swiping an angry tear from his cheek. "You should not be here."

"Neither should you, Niklaus." She drew closer, away from the shade of the trees. "It isn't safe. You know that."

He sniffed. "The hell with my safety."

"Niklaus, you do not mean that."

"Why are you here?" he said angrily. "I did not ask for you to be here."

"You are my _brother_ ," she told him. "Where else would I be?"

He stared at her, almost shaking with emotion. They stood, facing one another across a deserted clearing; in the moonlight, their shadows were hulking figures on the damp ground.

Finally, Niklaus moved toward her, his face stony with pride. "When I want you with me, _sister_ ," he ground out, "you will know. Otherwise, keep your useless love to yourself."

With that, he brushed past her, leaving her alone in the clearing.

The anger and hurt choked her throat with salty warmth.

~

  
Even Elijah left in the end.

He did not want to, but after the third sibling Niklaus struck down and daggered, even the most patient and noble of men ran out of unconditional love.

(Rebekah wondered why she was still there. After hundreds of years, she supposed maybe she just didn't care one way or the other anymore. This seemed as good an explanation as any.)

She came downstairs to find him drinking, his shirt open, blood streaking his chin. Two young, golden-haired women lay dead and half-naked before the blazing fire, blood coagulating on savage gashes on their necks. Rebekah looked away from the bodies. It was grotesque. She wished Niklaus wouldn't flaunt his whores in front of her.

"Where is Elijah?"

He turned, his scowl melting at the sight of her, raised his glass. "Ah, Bekah. You've truly missed the fun."

She drew closer to him, stopping before a corpse. She wouldn't lower herself by stepping over it. One dead hand bore a silver bracelet. It was just the thing she would have liked for herself--but she wouldn't stoop to picking it off of a casualty of Niklaus's tantrum. "Elijah. Where is he?"

A sneer twisted Niklaus's features. "Oh, he's gone," he told her, and took a long swallow from his glass. "Make no mistake."

She stood still, and waited for the rage to overcome her. For despair, grief, anything at all. But there was nothing.

Finally, she asked, "Where did he go?"

"I told him to try searching at the bottom of the ocean." Niklaus grinned, and his teeth were ugly with dark blood. "Dear Elijah is no doubt sleeping with the fishes by now."

She snorted. "You are proud of yourself."

He gazed at her, wiped blood from his chin with a finger, and laved it with his tongue. "And you sound nothing short of disgusted. Don't tell me, Bekah." He stepped over a body, drawing closer to her. "You are simply finished with this. With me. I ruin everything. I bring nothing but pain to everyone I touch."

She'd never said anything of the kind before. Knew he must somehow be echoing Elijah's words. Or Mikael's. "You destroy everyone because you choose to," she said coolly. "It does not make you special."

Niklaus's smirk faded into a sullen glare. "Now, Bex." He gripped her chin, turning her face up to him. "Is that any way to talk to your favourite brother?"

"You are not even my brother," she sneered. (In all her life, she'd never been so cruel.)

He hit her then. Backhanded her hard enough to leave a mark.

She gingerly touched her cheek, and was glad of the pain.

Niklaus was the only thing that ever made her feel anymore, and for that she was willing to be hurt a thousand times over.

~

  
He came to her later that night, stinking of liquor and despair. (It was always like this.)

"Bekah," he whispered in a choked voice, cupping her face. His touch was cold, and incited a knot of ice and heat low in her belly. "Sweetheart, you are not really angry with me. You must not be." His fingers twisted in her hair. "We are all that's left, Bex. Just you and I. We do not need them. It is you alone I want beside me. Please say you understand, sister."

She had no words to speak, so she silenced his impassioned rambling the only way that truly worked. The taste of him was sharp and bitter, like dried blood in an open wound.

Later, laying among the tangled sheets, he murmured, so quiet she thought maybe he did not want her to hear, "I am not yours, sister. But you will always be mine."

~

  
"Wake up, sister." Niklaus crouches above her now, all tightly-coiled fury and undeserved righteousness, his bright eyes piercing into hers with some emotion she doesn't care to place. Maybe it's love. That was always an effective punch line.

"Rebekah, I need you with me," he's saying, a hand clutching her own.

"Are you with me, sister?"

  


~

  
  



End file.
